by Amy Cross
And my hands...
My hands have stopped shaking.
“We're there.”
Looking up, I see Dzigniav Wolonovsky standing next to me.
“You did it, Mr. Holland,” he continues, with a hint of fear and wonder in his eyes. “You got us there. I had my doubts, I thought maybe this was a stretch but... You goddamn bastard, you actually did it.”
“Where is he?” I sneer, struggling to my feet. “I'm gonna tear him limb from limb!”
“Focus on Mary.”
I turn to him. “Who?”
It takes a moment before I realize that he's right. In my rage, I'd actually forgotten about Mary and Josh.
“Where are they?” I stammer, turning and stumbling toward the door. “I have to -”
“One more thing,” Wolonovsky adds. “It's important, Mr. Holland.”
I turn to him.
“I told a little lie about why I wanted your help,” he continues, as a faint smile flickers across his face. “I'm sorry, but it was absolutely necessary. Now... Smile!”
Before I have time to react, he swings a nail-studded baseball bat at my face, hitting me with enough force to rip out one side of my cheek and send me thudding against the wall. And everything goes black.
Chapter Twenty-Four
As I open my eyes, some kind of bird is screeching high above in the orange-red sky, and sharp metal is being pulled around my left wrist. For a moment, the entire world seems to be shuddering, but I can't help noticing that the sky somehow looks dirty, as if it's filled with tiny particles of -
Suddenly I feel a cutting pain in my wrist, jolting me back to my senses.
“You'll thank me later,” Wolonovsky explains with a smile, stepping back once he's finished cuffing my left wrist to a set of metal chains. He's holding the other end of the chains in his right hand. “Trust me, you did not want to come face to face with your Hellform in there. Any human who encounters his own Hellform is doomed to madness.” His smile broadens. “Oh, and welcome to Hell!”
Stumbling to my feet, I step toward him. “What are you -”
Before I can finish, I feel a sudden pain against my wrist. Pulling back , I find that the handcuffs are sharp and ragged, with slices of metal already digging into the flesh.
“Keep your distance, my friend,” Wolonovsky says firmly.
Ignoring him, I step closer. Before I can reach out and grab him, however, he swings a knife at me. The blade catches the side of my face and I fall back, instantly tasting blood in my mouth.
“Welcome to the Hellform world,” Wolonovsky continues, his eyes wide with wonder as he turns and looks along the street. “I've been waiting so long for a chance to come back here. Dreaming about it when I'm asleep, dreaming about it when I'm awake, always wondering how it would feel to be here again. And now I know, it feels...”
He pauses, and a shudder passes through his body.
“Alive,” he whispers finally. “Alive again, thank God.”
“What is this place?” I shout, lunging at him. He quickly holds up the knife, forcing me back. “Why are we here?”
“Why?” He frowns, but slowly he starts to smile. “You don't remember?”
I try to grab the knife, only for Wolonovsky to kick me hard in the chest, sending me crumpling back down.
“I knew those photos would damage your mind,” he continues, “but I didn't think you'd actually forget your own family.”
“Family?” I want to tell him that he's insane, but slowly I feel a flicker of recognition as I think back to the photos I was forced to see. “Mary...” I whisper, suddenly filled with a sense of horror. “What have you done to my wife?”
“Me?” He turns the knife in his hand, letting the blade glint against the morning light, and then he glances both ways along the street again. He seems nervous, but also strangely excited. “I haven't done anything to her, Mr. Holland. The part about the Hellform in your apartment was all true. He has your wife and your son. He has some help while he tortures them, too. But I lied when I gave you hope. Once someone has been taken by a Hellform, there's no chance they can ever be saved. If there had been another way for me to get back here, one that hadn't involved hitching a ride with you, I would have taken it. I'm not a bad man, but I have my needs.”
“Where's my wife?” I yell, trying to judge when I can slip past the knife and overpower the bastard. “Where's my son?”
As if to answer that question, Mary suddenly screams again. Turning, I look up the side of the building and see Josh's bedroom window high above. The walls of the apartment block are dirty and stained, and the whole place is in a state of terrible disrepair. Meanwhile the sky seems to be almost on fire, churning with blood-red clouds, and when I turn to look along the street I see nothing but carnage and damage. It's as if our city has suddenly become a war-zone.
“This is the land of the Hellforms,” Wolonovsky explains a little breathlessly, almost as if he's glad to be here. “A reflection of our own world. A barbarous, murder-filled place, a slice of humanity's worst elements. All the anger, hatred and cruelty of our world has its source here, bubbling away and waiting for a chance to break free. It's very, very rare for a human to get a glimpse of this world, but I was lucky many years ago and you've been lucky now, thanks to that printer somehow showing up. I'm sure you don't feel lucky right now, but -”
“Untie me!” I shout, throwing myself at him. Before I can even try to grab the knife from his hand, however, he flashes the blade across my face and sends me clattering back down to the ground. I feel a sharp pain across the bridge of my nose, but I can't focus on that now.
I have to get to Mary.
“This way,” he mutters, stepping off the pavement and heading across the street with the chains still in his hand.
A moment later, the chains around my wrists pull tight and I feel the handcuffs digging once more into my flesh. Dragged to my feet, I stumble after him. He's leading me like some kind of goddamn prisoner, but a moment later I hear Mary's scream again and I stop.
“Keep moving!” he barks, tugging on the chains and pulling me across the street, away from the apartment building. “Stop fighting the madness! You'll feel so much better when you just accept that this is how it has to be! Neither of us will survive long here, but that's okay. Just embrace the -”
“No!” I shout, pulling back despite the pain in my wrists. “My wife and -”
“He's got them,” he replies, interrupting me.
He pulls harder on the chains, and this time I stumble and drop to my knees as the cuffs dig deeper into my flesh. My right hand is free, but no matter how hard I try to pull my left hand free, the pain is too strong.
“It's too late, Mr. Holland. All you can do now is hope he gets bored and kills her quickly. And you're going to come with me, so you won't hear her screams.”
“Why are you doing this?” I stammer, flinching as I hear Mary cry out again. “Why are -”
“Move!” he yells, pulling on the chains again.
I try to hold back, but the cuffs are slicing through my wrists now. Falling onto my side, I'm powerless to resist as Wolonovsky drags me across the street, hauling me over toward the convenience store on the corner. I try yet again to get to my feet and grab the chains so I can stop him, but he's much stronger than he looks and he barely seems to notice my efforts as he reaches the store and pushes the door open.
“Wait!” I shout. “My wife -”
“In!” he yells, dragging me through the doorway and onto the store's dirty, cracked floor. Kicking my legs aside, he slams the door shut and then peers out at the street. After a moment, he flicks the sign around to indicate that the place is closed. “We don't want to get caught outside for too long,” he continues. “There'll be Hellforms along soon. They'll be able to sniff us out and -”
He stops suddenly, before stepping back from the door.
“There's one already,” he mutters, as a smile grows on his lips. “I've been waiting
so long for this moment. Damn it, I wish I hadn't lost that bat when I was getting us out of the apartment.” He looks down at the knife in his hand. “I'm gonna need something bigger than this.”
Despite the pain in my tattered wrists, I manage to stand, although I quickly have to lean against the counter. While this is the same corner store I've visited many times over the years, the whole place looks rundown and decrepit, with blood smeared across the walls and a faint odor of rotting meat filling the air. The shelves are still stocked, however, although all the brands seem to be uncanny parodies of the names and logos that exist in the real world.
“Nice place, huh?” Wolonovsky mutters, clearly amused by my sense of shock. After a moment, he turns and looks back out through the door's glass screen. “It's like I told you before, the Hellform world is a dirty, dank reflection of our own. And when you surrender to it, the whole place becomes intoxicating.”
“This can't be real,” I whisper, before feeling something tickling my hand. Looking down, I see beads of blood running from my torn wrists. In fact, I've lost so much blood from my various cuts and wounds, I'm actually starting to feel light-headed. “This has to be some kind of nightmare. There's no -”
Suddenly I hear Mary screaming again. I turn and limp toward the door, grabbing Wolonovsky's arm and pulling him aside.
“I have to get to her,” I stammer, “I have to -”
Before I can pull the door open, I feel a sharp pain in my gut. I pull back, shocked as I see fresh blood glistening on Wolonovsky's knife.
“You're useful to me right now,” he says firmly, as I slump down and lean against the counter. “I know I can't survive long in this place. No-one can. But I'd rather live one day in the Hellform world than an entire lifetime back in that safe, sterile place we call home. For the Hellforms, pain is pleasure. You spend long enough here, and you start to feel like Hell is Heaven.”
“You're insane,” I gasp, trying to get to my feet, only for the pain in my gut to hold me down. “How can you want to be here?”
“I always knew I had to come back,” he continues. “When I was here before, I wasn't old enough or mature enough to appreciate this place. I was like you, I was terrified. But then when I went back home, everything seemed so flat and boring, and I began to fantasize about finding my way here again. I knew I'd need to piggy-back on someone else's journey, so you can imagine my excitement when I discovered my web-pages were finally scoring hits. I knew that meant someone else was sniffing around the Hellforms.” He pauses, before looking out the window again. “We'll have company soon. These things have an instinctive need to kill. It's quite glorious, really, when you see them in full flow.”
“You sound like you want them to kill you,” I tell him.
“Maybe I do,” he replies, turning to me. “Once you've tasted the madness of the Hellform world, you can never -”
Suddenly he pulls back, as if he's worried about being seen by something on the other side of the door.
“There's one out there,” he whispers to me, his eyes alive with anticipation. “There's actually -”
Before he can finish, something thuds against the door, trying to push through. Wolonovsky has already slid the bolt across, but the creature on the other side keeps trying over and over again, each time slamming its full weight against the frame. The door's glass panel is dirty and scratched, but I can just make out a large, lumbering shape with patches of yellow and brown all over its body. Just like the figure I saw in some of the print-outs.
“What is that thing?” I ask, dragging myself a little further away from the door.
“Isn't it beautiful?” Wolonovsky replies, as the door shudders in its frame. “It won't give up, you know. You're witnessing one of the most -”
Hearing a crashing sound from the far end of the store, we both turn and look along the empty aisles.
“What was that?” I ask, struggling to my feet despite the pain in my gut.
“They've already got us surrounded,” he replies, stepping past me. He still has the bloodied knife in one hand, and the other end of the chain in the other, but he seems distracted by the continued bumping noise that seems to be coming from the stockroom. “Don't make the mistake of thinking they're dumb, Mr. Holland. They're violent and brutal and obscene, but underneath their rotting flesh they're as smart as us. Maybe even smarter sometimes.”
Trying to ignore the pain, I watch the knife carefully, trying to judge when I can wrestle it from his hand. I might only get one more chance.
“I've waited so long for this moment,” he continues, as if he barely even remembers that I'm still here. “To be around these magnificent -”
Suddenly there's a splintering sound from the door. Turning, I see that the glass screen is cracked now, and the creature outside is battering the door harder than ever.
A moment later, I spot something moving in one of the store's aisles, and I turn just in time to see a lumbering shape rushing toward Wolonovsky from the stockroom.
“Behind you!” I yell.
Wolonovsky spins around and flashes the knife toward the creature, slicing its face and sending it tumbling back with a howl of pain. The Hellform looks similar to the man in the photos that came from the printer, except that this specimen is thinner and a little taller. Its body is bloated, with pus-filled sacs rupturing its flesh, and I can see the faint gray shapes of bones showing through its gelatinous muscles. And already, despite the blood and yellowish liquid that's running from the wound on its face, the creature seems to be preparing for another attack. Before I can say anything, it lets out a gurgled scream and lunged at Wolonovsky again.
“Nice try!” Wolonovsky yells, grinning like a maniac as he steps toward the Hellform and stabs it several more times, driving the knife into its chest over and over.
The creature cries out, revealing two rows of rotten teeth, but it's already slumping down into its knees and I watch in horror as Wolonovsky carves the knife through its neck and finally severs its head entirely. He lets the head fall to the ground, where it lands hard and a sac of pus bursts on its forehead. At the same time, Wolonovsky has his hands on the severed neck stump, and slowly he leans closer and starts drinking the blood that spurts out from the wound.
I pull back, as the creature outside the main door continues to smash through.
“What did I tell you?” Wolonovsky stammers, his face covered in blood as he turns to me. “You don't have to hold back in this world. You can do all the things you always wanted to do. You no longer have to pretend to be civilized, you can -”
Suddenly the door crashes open and another Hellform bursts into the store. Female this time, the creature stumbles as it limps toward Wolonovsky, and he turns to face this latest foe with a grin on his face. Before I can warn him, however, a third creature appears from one of the aisles and grabs his shoulders, biting down hard on his neck and forcing him to his knees.
“I've waited my whole life for this!” Wolonovsky shouts as he tries to stab the female creature, only for the knife to slither from his blood-soaked hand. “Thank you, Mr. Holland! Without you, I could never have fulfilled my -”
He lets out a sudden scream as the two creatures start tearing him apart, but at the same time he also seems to be laughing. I watch as strips of flesh are ripped from his face and neck, and as blood erupts from his throat. Even as the creatures swarm around him and start pulling the bones from his body, however, I can see his insane, grinning face, and finally I grab the knife before getting to my feet and hurrying toward the broken door. I almost slip in the blood, but I manage to get outside. The handcuffs are still attached to my left wrist, but the chain is now dragging along the floor behind me I try to get away.
“Thank you!” Wolonovsky calls after me, his voice gurgling now as more blood fills his mouth. “Thank you so much! This is all I -”
I turn and see that his entire throat has now been ripped out. The creatures are ripping him apart with shocking ferocity, but somehow in th
e midst of all that blood I can tell that he's still laughing. For a moment, all I can do is stare at the horrific scene, and I'm tempted to take the knife and cut the two creatures down.
And then suddenly I hear Mary screaming in the distance, and I remember why I'm here.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“I'm coming,” I stammer, with tears streaming down my face as I limp away from the store. I can hear Mary still screaming, but at least that means she's still alive.
I can still save her.
A moment later, I hear a faint grunting sound nearby, and I turn just in time to see a couple of naked, blood-stained figures stumbling toward me. The two Hellforms from the store have evidently finished with Wolonovsky's remains, and now they're coming from more. One of them has a section of Wolonovsky's gut wrapped around its ankle, trailing a section of intestine through the dirty street.
“Keep back,” I stammer, pulling away and turning to run, only to stop as I see a couple more figures coming from the other direction. In fact, as I look around, I realize there are at least twenty of them emerging from the ends of nearby streets and alleys, as if my presence is drawing them closer.
Stepping back, I realize they're slowly starting to surround me.
They're talking, too, but I can't make out a word of what they're saying. Whatever language they're using, it sounds twisted and distorted, although it's clear that they understand one another perfectly well. They seem to be planning their attack, and several of them are grinning now.
I hold the knife up, even though I know that I'm hopelessly ill-prepared to defend myself.
Turning, I try to run around to the front of the building, but several more of these creatures block my path, forcing me back. I turn to go around to the rear, but more and more of them are coming for me, lumbering slowly with broader and broader smiles on their faces. I can't shake the feeling that they all see me as some kind of prey. They're talking more and more, too, probably discussing their plans in that strange, inhuman language.
